NEW DELHI: Citizens can avail of various government schemes and services
such as issue of birth and death certificates by filling up simplified
forms that may be compressed to a single-page format within the next one
year.Announcing
the initiative on 'Good Governance Day', observed by the Modi
government to mark former Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee's birthday,
minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh said the government, as
part of its effort to make the service delivery mechanism
citizen-centric, would be talking to and guiding all government
departments/ministries to make their procedures and forms for accessing
citizens services, less cumbersome.
"Today when a beneficiary has to access government schemes, he/she has
to fill up lengthy, often complicated forms and give a lot of
information repeatedly. There is a need to have a critical look at the
current procedures and forms in use in various departments and
ministries in the government. There is a need to eliminate layers of
decision making for adding speed to the disposal mechanism. There is a
need to specify one page forms seeking essential information for
upholding the dignity of our citizens," Singh told a press conference
here on Friday.
Secretary
(personnel) Sanjay Kothari said some of the forms that could be made
simpler are those for issue of birth certificate and death certificate.
DoPT, he said, has introduced simpler forms for Central pensioners and
those availing of disability pension and other services. "National
Centre for Good Governance, which comes under DoPT, will be holding
workshops under its initiative 'Saral Avedan, Sugam Prakriya, Swachh
Prashasan' with at least two government departments every month to
discuss simpler, preferably single-page forms. We have already held
workshops with the rural development ministry, DIPP and some labour
ministry deptts, in this regard," he said.

The
review of the forms and procedures by NCGG in consultation with various
ministries and departments seeks to put convenience of the
beneficiaries over that of the department administering the scheme.
Also, the underlying principles are that the approach of the department
towards beneficiaries should be based on trust; the forms should be made
as simple and small ( a single A 4 size page) as possible for the
beneficiary; contents of the forms should be easy to understand and fill
in; the documents to be attached with the form should be easy for the
beneficiary to obtain; and the intended benefit must reach the eligible
beneficiary quickly with dignity.